Why Soul Machines made an AI baby

At Soul Machines, a company that uses artificial intelligence to create lifelike avatars that respond to human emotion, a fair amount of their work could be considered unsettling to the average person who fears the coming takeover by our AI-robot overlords. It's a company that pretty much lives in the uncanny valley, that space between fake and real that can creep people out, but that's not usually what happens when people meet BabyX, said Soul Machines founder Mark Sagar. Instead, he says, when the baby begins to whimper or cry, some respond in human ways, demonstrating what appears to be sympathy similar to the kind they may lavish on a human baby. "I'll probably get about 10 or 15 percent of people respond with'that's creepy,' and others it doesn't bother them at all. Ultimately it's about creating an emotional connection and then people jump right into that," he said. To see which of these two camps you fall into, watch the video below.